


It was broken when I got here

by MagicalSpaceDragon



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Autistic Character, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Sensory Overload, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalSpaceDragon/pseuds/MagicalSpaceDragon
Summary: So, here's the big secret. Deadlock's glitched. Always has been.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> good news drift is autistic
> 
> bad news deadlock has no coping mechanisms for sensory overload so violent meltdowns it is

_URGENT: Switchblade is talking._

Deadlock dismisses the alert and doesn't look up from his rifle. He needs the calming familiarity of taking the thing apart to clean it after things went as sideways as they did in the field today. It was loud and ugly and too many things happening at once, and all of them happening _too close._

_URGENT: Switchblade is talking._

He dismisses the alert a little more viciously. He fragging _knows_ Switchblade is talking. Switchblade is a loudmouth who's gonna get himself killed for annoying the wrong mech one of these days, and Deadlock is entirely comfortable with ignoring him until then.

_URGENT: Switchblade is talking._

Switchblade is cracking jokes with the rest of his squad. He's on the other side of a sizable room, back turned, comfortably within Deadlock's field of vision, and, this is important, he's a _complete non-threat._ The idiot truck can't shoot for scrap, has zero ambition, and, guess what! If he _does_ try something, Deadlock can fragging _handle it._ He's not some nameless addict cowering in the gutters anymore, he's not _scared_ of someone who _talks a little loud._

_URGENT: Switchblade is talking._

His hands are starting to shake. Every hyper-cheerful word out of the idiot's mouth feels like claws raking over his audials. He grits his teeth and stubbornly refuses to throw his mostly-reassembled rifle at the wall just to get his glitching processor to focus on _literally any other sound._

_URGENT: Switchblade is talking._

Throw it. _Throw it._ Slam it against the table. A clear, ringing impact, metal on metal, sudden and soothing like a gunshot, _do it,_ anything to make it _stop._ Throw it. _Break it._

_URGENT: Switchblade is talking._

He growls, tearing through his code for the manual override on his stupid faulty language center. It's like forcing his way through an industrial grinder. "Shut. _Up."_

_URGENT: Switchblade is talking._

He finally snaps his head up and _snarls._ The other mechs see him and stagger back, but, oh, fragging _Switchblade_ keeps _laughing_ with that awful grating voice, as if he shouldn't _know_ it's the audial equivalent of licking rust off a dead mech. Louder and louder, noise noise _noise._

_URGENT: Switchblade is—_

Deadlock shoots him.


	2. Chapter 2

So, here's the big secret. Deadlock's glitched. Always has been.

He didn't always know. It was a lesson he learned like paint peeling off a wall one flake at a time. It was waking up for the first time already in pain, blinded by the lights above and suffocated by the fields crammed together all around. It was checking his language pack over and over again for some explanation of why  _ how about we go outside and have a nice chat _ meant  _ start running. _ It was an enforcer twice his size grabbing him by the chin and snarling  _ look at me when I'm talking to you. _

It was clamping his hands over his audials and  _ screaming _ to drown out the rain, the downpour hammering and the acid hissing and the runoff gurgling, the wind clattering rust against rust, every strike  _ screeching, _ screeching that brought him to his  _ knees, _ the rain that wouldn't  _ stop _ and would  _ never _ stop and it filled his head like half-hardened slag, hot agony impossible to think through—

It was one of the mechs they were taking shelter with snapping at Gasket,  _ I don't care what he's on, just shut him up, _ as if Drift's screaming was the only sound in all of that he could hear.

(It was Drift mumbling to Gasket, later, that he wasn't on slag-all. It was Gasket sighing and telling him that he didn't have to lie.)


End file.
